


Time to do the things we never had

by chan_bi



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Multi, just the way i like it, this is like 99percent banter and 1percent plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24319303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chan_bi/pseuds/chan_bi
Summary: Eugene finds out how hard life is when you’re trying to play matchmaker between your girlfriend and her crush while the three of you share one single brain cell that is currently on vacation
Relationships: Cassandra & Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider (Disney), Cassandra/Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel, Cassandra/Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled), Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel
Comments: 10
Kudos: 92





	Time to do the things we never had

**Author's Note:**

> First work in this fandom, I hope y'all like it!
> 
> A big thank you to my beta [Daisy](https://occlueen.tumblr.com/), I miss you so much it hurts sometimes.

Eugene had been pacing in front of that door for who knows how long.  
On the other side, Cassandra’s room.

Honestly? Waiting to get into that creepy black rock tower of hers back during her blue haired phase after she had just kidnapped a fifteen years old kid? Less scary than this.

He needed to get himself together and just knock. Then talk. Easy. Nothing to worry about. He was the Captain of the Guard of the Kingdom of Corona, he could manage a single conversation! Even if it was with the Queen of Ice herself.  
And boy, what a conversation.

He could hear her on the other side of the door, moving around and… Oh God… Did that mean she could hear him too then?  
Ok, that was it…  
Retreat time.  
Run to live another day.  
It wasn’t even the first time he had to do it with her, retreat, even if this time there were fewer people screaming in terror, rocks moving around and less pointy things in general.

The moment he was about to turn and run, Cassandra opened the door, spear in hand.  
Ok, maybe he had spoken too soon.  
Pointy things this time too.  
And.  
Pointy things so very close to his beautiful nose.

He didn’t dare move, even to take a step back from the end of the spear pointing at his face.  
The moment she realized who he was, the spear retracted a little bit and her face somewhat relaxed -touching, really- only to set on an expression of annoyance.  
Her usual when talking to him, honestly.

“What do _you_ want?”

“Not to be blinded on the spot by your spear, actually, right now. Do you mind?” He waved the thing away from his own face. “What are you even doing swinging this thing around to innocent bystanders”

“Because you’re innocent?”

“I think I can finally say I don’t hold the record for most pardoned crimes in the castle anymore, thanks to you.” Aaaand maybe he went too far with this, well shit. He needed to remember that maybe for her it wasn’t…

She didn’t miss a beat “Lance was here before me so…”

“No! That’s enough! I’ll stop you right there! Go back to being evil, well in your case just more evil than normal, but do not, DO NOT, take Lance’s side on our ‘I’ve got away with more crimes than you’ competition! You win, yes, congratulations. You destroyed an entire Kingdom and partnered up with an actual demon.” He clapped slowly three times “But this is between him and me.”

She still looked completely unfazed by him bringing up her past. He was impressed. He really was.  
She was actually smirking evilly at him.

“Still feeling insecure about yourself outside your very. Very. Very. Old criminal identity, Fitzherbert?”

Ok. That was it.  
“Ok, this is it. Enough with the pleasantries.”

He took her by her elbow and guided her into the room, shutting the door. Once inside, it finally hit him what he just did.  
They shared a look for a minute, wide-eyed, before they both simultaneously looked down at his hand still gripping her elbow. He let it go with a squeak he wasn’t even embarrassed about because he knew the only reason he still had his hand was because she couldn’t believe his audacity either.  
Good God she’s scary.

Change the subject.

Change the subject.

Change the subject.

“The reason I’m here...”

“There’s a reason that isn’t just you wanting to annoy me?”

“The reason I’m here...” He said louder.

“...Is Rapunzel.” “...Is Rapunzel.”

She was wearing a smug look on her face and that was it, he needed to get to the point fast, just to make her stop looking like that.

“Well, yes.”

“What did you do this time, Fitzherbert”

“How dare you, I didn’t do anything!”  
“You didn’t do another one of your ill-timed proposals to her, did you?”

“Nooo, this has nothing to do with that, but I do have a proposal for you.”

He winced at his poor choice of words as Cassandra shuddered, looking as horrified as he felt.  
Yeah, no.

In all of his pacing and fretting and pondering and everything of this last week, Eugene had come up with a plan of action on how to talk to Cassandra about this.

It was all about confidence.  
And he had plenty of that.  
Often fake, sometimes misplaced, but plenty.

He confidently gestured to Cassandra to sit down in the chair near them and confidently looked around for a place to sit himself. Which was non existent. Perfect. He was so not doing this standing up so he decided to sit on her bed. Which was obviously a horrible decision, judging by the height of her left eyebrow when he faced her.

But, thankfully, she was probably too curious about this whole thing at this point to try to maim him before he got to tell his piece. Her patience, though, wasn’t infinite. Not by a long shot. It was actually the opposite. Her patience was as big as Shorty’s sense of self. Especially her patience with him.  
So yeah, stop stalling Fitzherbert and go for it if you want to get out of here with all of your limbs intact.

"You know that time I proposed during her coronation weekend and I couldn't figure out why she said no?"

"So this _is_ still about that."

Eugene ignored her retort and her snorting and went on. This was no time for bickering with Cassandra, even if it was second nature for the both of them.

"And you told me that wanting her here safe and happy was something I wanted and not necessarily something she wanted too?"

He waited for her to realize it wasn't a rhetorical question, he really needed to be sure she remembered that conversation.

Maybe because of his tone, or maybe because it was obviously a touchy subject for everyone involved but probably because she sensed his unusual unwillingness to start a banter, she sobered and answered almost gent...nope if it was any other person in the world- hell, even that rhino-lover lunatic!- Eugene would have said almost gently but this was Cassandra so let's say... not evilly? Not evilly for once?  
Yeah, she sobered and answered not evilly for once. Eugene could live with that.

"Yeah, but you both... grew a lot in these past few years and… ”

She was dragging her words like it was physically paining her not to be mean to him.  
Which in fairness it probably was…

“Yeah, no, you don’t need to… whatever, I know. But you...were… ri...not wrong.” Yup, he could feel the bile in his stomach caused by saying these kinds of things to each other. He was so not looking at her during this part of the speech. He was instead fidgeting with the side of the blanket he was sitting on. It was all about confidence right?  
“I mean. I really was not thinking about what she wanted and it took me a while to get that. I really really thought she wanted to feel safe and to be with the people she loved because that's what I would have wanted in her situation. But she didn't and with time I think I've learned to, you know, actually listen? And, and think? I know I know, astonishing. But still, yeah. And then it made sense that someone who had spent the first eighteen years of their life locked in a tower could want to go out there and live and do things and make mistakes and learn by getting things right and getting things wrong. And not always be safe. You know?"

He looked up long enough to see that he had Cassandra's attention completely. She was listening attentively, even as much as leaning a little bit on her chair toward him.

"And so I've decided that, yeah, she had the right to do whatever she wanted with her life. Be happy with any and all experience she wanted to have. And if my actions could in any way help her achieve, even a little bit, more of said happiness, and if I got to stay by her side, then I'd be the luckiest man alive."

He took a deep breath and waited. This was awful, he would much rather have opened up with the frog.

“Why are you telling me this?”

"Last week we were talking in her bed before sleeping. Did you know, I finally get to sleep in her room? Still have my own and I use it more than not, but there are no more guards to kick me out if I stay too long in hers. That's nice. After four years of relationship and everything. And it’s a sign that her parents finally completely treat her as the adult she is. Or maybe it's because I'm those guards’ boss now and they can't kick me out of anywhere..."

"Eugene!"

"Huh?"

"Get to the point. I don't care about any of that!"

"Ohoh, believe me, you will."  
After all these years, Eugene had become a pro at having conversations with Cassandra's eyebrows. This one said: you have one more minute to cut to the chase or you'll be the one to be cut.

"Anyway. We were talking, and your name came up. Which is so very weird because it never does. I mean, can you even imagine if the favorite topic of conversation of my girlfriend was you?" He watched Cassandra closely as he continued. He was pretty sure about all of this, well at least this part of all of this. But in the one in a million chances he was wrong he needed to watch for something in her behavior that would give it away so he could backtrack. "I mean 'Cass this, Cass that. I'm so happy Cass is back from her trip! Listen closely Eugene I'm now going to make this whole speech that tells you I'm actually in love with my best friend but I don't actually know romantic love between two women is even a thing, so good luck deciding what to do now!' Seriously can you? Imagine? I love her to pieces but I would give an arm and a leg for some conversations about something friendlier and warmer at this point, like those creepy black rocks or good old demons.. Or snow! Obviously warmer than all of this Cassandra talk."

It was actually kind of fascinating watching her face go to all those emotions all at once while she processed what he said. The annoyance she normally wore when talking to him was replaced by confusion then shock and then a little bit of… glee? Hope?

It was a strange look on her but, if he was being honest, it really wasn’t at all.  
It wasn’t like he hadn’t known for years about her feelings for Rapunzel. Or that he had never noticed how her expression could soften just by laying eyes on her, usually just for a moment before turning back as hard as ever. As if she only allowed herself small little moments of fondness before boxing her feelings back close to her chest.

He liked to make fun of her icy exterior but the truth was that he knew first hand what it meant to repress part of his own emotions - hell he tried so hard to distance himself from them to change his entire persona going as far as to change his own name - and he knew that whole moonstone fiasco would have never escalated so majorly if it wasn’t for some real big shit bottled up in there.  
And he knew, he knew it hadn’t been all just a matter of unrequited love- years of feeling underappreciated and marginalized even when doing everything right, by Gothel, by her father and even by Rapunzel and, yeah, himself and all of that stuff - but he always had the feeling that that particular issue had made it worse.

Anyway, he was now here, looking in the eye Cassandra of all people, telling her that the person she had quietly -but not so covertly- pining over for half of her adult life loved her back. That person being his own girlfriend, by the way.  
And someone may ask: Eugene, how do you feel about the fact that Cassandra was so obviously in love with the love of your life for all these years? Is it the reason you two are so hostile to each other?  
And the answer would be no. The reason the two of them were always hostile with each other was because their personalities just didn’t match. Mostly because she didn’t have one. But no, really! Her love for Rapunzel was one of the things he really appreciated about Cassandra. Because, honestly: same!

Also, right now it was just so much fun to watch the Queen of Ice herself shortcut by these new information he was offering.  
No witty retort, no harsh laugh.  
Only two rounded eyes and a slightly opened mouth, curved upwards just lightly so. As if she couldn't bring herself to believe his words just yet.  
Any other day he would put on a smirk and make a scornful remark but this was a delicate situation and even him, Eugene Fitzherbert, could tone it down a bit for just this once. Incredible, right?

“Look what I’m saying is, I thought she loved you like a sister” He didn’t miss her small flinch at that “because that’s what she kept saying. And I think you thought it too. But after everything I’ve heard in these last few weeks, I just think that maybe she just doesn’t know how to categorize her feelings for you? I mean, I really don’t think sweet dear Gothel drew the good old genderbread person or gave her ‘gender equality 101’ up in that tower of hers.”  
And man did _that_ make her recoil.  
Congratulations Fitzherbert, you managed to be tactful for the most part of twenty seconds!  
Did he ever tell anyone how glad he was that his newfound parent was just a crazy guy with bear hood and a wacky crow?

“Well _Eugene_ , I don’t know what you’re trying to do here but I’d appreciate it if you’d leave now.”  
There it was. The infamous Cassandra shutdown. Her most lethal talent, after the force behind her eyebrows and the hundreds of ways she could kill him.

Okay, Fitzherbert, count to five and don’t slip again.  
“I didn’t mean to bring that up, but it’s true. I really do believe it.”  
Good, see. I knew you could do it. Blondie would be proud of you!

“So what now? Are you here to warn me to stay away from her?”

Her face was like stone, but her voice betrayed her. She was scared. Good God she was scared!

“Warn you how, exactly? ‘Stay away from my girl or I’m going to hit your fist with my face’? No thanks. And anyway I’ve got a lot more to lose than you if we get into a fight.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, look at me! Look at my face! I can’t take the risk to damage the moneymaker here, you are so lucky, you don’t have that much that can be damaged.”

Once again she just looked at him and yeah... He had to remember how sensitive the situation really was.

“Do you really think I‘ve come here to just wave my newfound discovery of her feelings in front of you, showing off what you are so close to have but can’t? Come on…” Say her name right, you coward! “...CassANdra” -jerk- “Give me a little credit!”

She stood up then, not suddenly or in any way threatening, if not for the fact that it was Cassandra, and Eugene had always been a little bit threatened by her from day one.  
She walked all the way to the table full of her weapons, cleaning tools and a whetstone - he had most likely crashed one of her sharpening sessions- gathered all the polishing supplies and neatly started to put them away one by one in a drawer inside her wardrobe of horrors, ignoring him with resolve.  
He did not like to be ignored and she knew it. This was one of her latest methods to deal with him, when she really was mad and not just playfully annoyed like usual.

“I am not that much of an asshole! Come on, it’s been years since Flynn and I think I’m doing an okay job at leaving him behind. No? No recognition? Fine.”  
If she wasn’t going to help him with this he’ll do it himself.  
Peptalk time!  
He was Eugene Fitzherbert. The Captain of the Guards. The hopefully one day Prince Consort of Corona. The maybe already actual Prince of the Dark Kingdom. He had battled alone against its Brotherhood (...and lost, but still). He came back from the dead once (even if, looking now at Cassandra, thinking about the frog, that statement seemed to be less and less of a unique and remarkable thing).  
He could open up a little.  
Even with her.

He laid back on the bed, leaving his booted feet still on the ground because he wanted to keep living. He stayed there for a little bit, looking at the ceiling and listening to her moving around. He had this conversation in his head a hundred times this past week he just needed to pretend it was just thinking out loud. When the noises from her ignoring him began to fade into the back of his head he started.

“As I said. You were right about us. About her. I’m trying to give her everything she wants and that is in my power to give. Because she deserves it and because I have everything I want just by being with her.”

“Real mature, Fitzherbert!”  
Like this, with him pointedly looking only at the ceiling and her pretending to be busy he could still imagine he was talking to himself. To that little voice in someone’s head that he would call conscience but… well it sounded like Cassandra so probably that voice in someone’s head that tells them to kill people and feast on their bodies. The point being, he could pretend she wasn’t actually there.

“I’m not saying this to brag about my happiness with you, I swear. I’m just saying, she’s free and I love that she’s free and I don’t want to ever be the thing that ties her to anything.”

“...Ok, I have to admit, that’s actually kind of mature” ...Maybe it was actually a voice in his head because, really, was that a compliment? “Did you get to it all on your own?”

There it was.

“Ah ah. I’m serious, though. If what she wants is to go back out there and travel for the rest of her life I’ll follow her and that would be what I want too, if she wants to stay here and become Queen it will be that, if she wants to drop everything and become a cobbler, that too.”  
He took a deep breath, there it was.  
“And what she wants is you.”  
He closed his eyes and let his speech sink in for a minute.  
No funny retort now, eh Cassandra? Voice in the head that sounds like Cassandra?

“I’m here to tell you that if you want to be with her, I’m not going to stand in the way…”

“I don’t get it, you’re saying you’re going to let me try to get your girlfriend?” She didn’t sound impressed. “You?!” At all. “I saw you risk your life numerous times fighting because you didn’t want to share an apple with Max…”

“That is between him and me.”

“How many weird feuds with how many people and/or animals do you have?”

Was she _trying_ to not have a chance with Rapunzel?

“ _Anyway_ , I’ve been thinking and thinking- don’t even try to say ‘did it hurt?’ even you are better than that joke- about it and at first I was like, kind of hurt about this? I mean, she has the hottest boyfriend in all of the Seven Kingdom and she falls for someone else?”

He heard her take a deep breath. Her voice was dragging like she really didn’t want to say what she was about to say.  
“Even if it was really true…”  
“It is.”  
“Even if, I don’t think she loves you any less because of that… Really Eugene.”  
Wow, that must have hurt so much.

Luckily he still had his eyes closed and none of this was really happening.

“Thanks, and yeah, I think I believe it too, maybe. Anyway, I kept thinking about it and about what to do and the more I thought the more I kept remembering how much I didn’t want to stand in the way of anything she might want.”

“And you’re not having this conversation with her because?”  
“Yeah, no, that is bound to be a dreadly awkward conversation. I was keeping myself up all night thinking about it, and you know how I feel about my beauty sleep. But then I figured, why not make Cassandra do it instead?”

“Wonderful.”

“Good luck. Anyway, this is the solution I came to. Win, win, win. I get to stay with her, she gets to have this astonishing piece of ass... and also you. And you get to be open to her with your feelings and having Rapunzel being in love with you back. Which, let me tell you… Yeah, no, I don’t need to tell you, you get it.”

He stayed there for a little while after that, eyes closed. It actually took him a while to register that the room was completely silent. There was no sound of Cassandra moving her weapons around anymore, or that she was even breathing if he thought about it.

Shit, did she leave during his speech? He’ll never be able to say those things to her again!  
In one sweet move he was on his feet again, blinking a couple of times to readjust to the light. And then he saw her, standing a few feet from him, completely frozen in place, as if she was trapped in amber once again.

They stood there, looking at each other, unmoving.  
Her eyes weren’t full of emotions and he decisively wasn’t getting worked up by that!  
No sir! It wasn’t like he could empathize with the idea of not being regarded in any meaningful way for the most part of his life until one day all of a sudden everything he ever wanted was well within his grasp because of a petite sunshine Princess loving him back. How could someone ever think something like that?  
(And yeah yeah, it’s more complicated than that on both their accounts but that’s what it felt like, okay? You get to say something about it once you get your own Rapunzel!)

Anyway, he was obviously only doing this for Rapunzel’s happiness, who cared what the Dragon lady felt about it? Not Eugene, that’s who!

He scratched the back of his head trying to break the tension.  
“Anyway, as I said, I have no intention of going anywhere so you’ll have to deal with that. I’m not saying no competition, because where’s the fun in that? But I am putting my foot down right now and saying no to making her choose between us. Never that. Not ever.”  
She still hadn’t moved an inch.

He extended his hand.  
“So what do you say? Do you want to be my girlfriend’s girlfriend?”  
That did it.  
She blinked twice, almost as if to regain focus on the world around her and, more specifically, on him and then his extended hand.

She slowly reached out with her own hand to meet his, but, just as he started to shake, she pulled -with her considerable strength that he wasn’t in any way, shape or form jealous about- him onto an hug.

It was less awkward than one would think and at least they didn't have to look at each other and acknowledge how big a deal this all thing was for the both of them.

After a while, he heard her whisper something along the lines of "I still don't get it..." and well yes this was really too much for him, and most likely for her too.

“Look, I don’t get it either, I just know Blondie would be happy having you as a girlfriend in addition to yours truly. Could she have much better taste? Yes, of course. But it actually makes sense in a way, her best friend is a frog so of course her ideal girlfriend had to be a snake!”

Without even breaking the hug she stomped on his foot, very very hard.  
Yup, this was going to go great.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment, leave kudos, come talk to me on [my tumblr](https://lylvandam.tumblr.com/), anything, I need validation!


End file.
